THE GOOD folk of Medway were bemused
to discover that a new head is being parachuted in to run the prep department
at the venerable Kings school, Rochester.

He is none other than Roger Overend,
first championed and then sacked by the Dean of Westminster from the abbey's
choir school after an exhaustive social services investigation found that he
had bullied pupils over an extended period.

Challenged by the Rochester local
paper to justify his choice, Kings school headmaster Ian Walker said: "It
is not true that Mr Overend was asked to leave Westminster Abbey choir school
and the claims that he bullied the pupils are not true. I spoke to the Dean
of Westminster Abbey at some length. The report from the social services is
not true."

Puzzlingly, the Dean of Westminster,
Dr Wesley Carr, has written to Westminster social services dissociating himself
from Mr Walker's comments.